


Unseen

by Issay



Series: One-shot collection [8]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Musical References, Peggy-centric, Revolutionary War, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 08:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10681692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: Peggy is 23 and people are already saying she’s destined to be a spinster, such a shame, nice girl from a good family shouldn’t have this much trouble finding a husband, maybe there’s something wrong with her.





	Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> Potentially historically inaccurate, heavily based on Chernow's book.

When Peggy is seven, she understands for the first time she’s not destined for great things.

She’s not the beautiful sister – that’s Eliza, with her pale skin and delicate features, with long fingers and laugh like silver bells. She’s also not the smart one – that’s Angelica who spends hours discussing politics with Father and reads books with titles Peggy doesn’t even try to understand. Peggy, with short, stocky legs and pudgy face, with her kind smile and mind busy with knitting and embroidery, is the wholesome girl no one ever notices. But that’s fine. When her sisters are busy with their soirées and books, she has more time for knitting quilts and warm winter sweaters for Father.

*

Peggy doesn’t understand the war.

And she has no wish to understand, no need for it – it’s simple, really, one day there was peace and another there was war, soldiers hiding in the lines of trees and fear of going anywhere alone. If there is anything Peggy excels at, it’s adapting. So she goes to town with her mother and brother, does a bit bigger shopping than usual, and spends two days with their kitchen slaves making preserves and dry rations, just in case they can’t leave the house. She stashes candles every upstairs bedrooms and the attic along with warm blankets and Bibles. Peggy prepares even though she has no idea what she’s preparing for. But that’s all right. She remembers the unrest of her childhood and figures it won’t be any different.

Her sisters move back to the family home, both heavily pregnant and surrounded by that golden glow of maternity, and Peggy welcomes them with smiles and tiny baby booties crocheted with love and softest yarns. She smiles to Philip’s wife and coos over their daughter, Catharine. She rubs soothing oils into Mother’s old, tired fingers and refills Father’s glass with whiskey on the rare occasions he’s home. The mansion is full of family and friends and Peggy thrives, making sure everyone is warm and fed and cared for.  They appreciate it, of course. She knows they do, even if no one ever thanks her for it, even if no one notices her.

(Peggy is 23 and people are already saying she’s destined to be a spinster, such a shame, nice girl from a good family shouldn’t have this much trouble finding a husband, maybe there’s something wrong with her.)

It’s early August, a hot night, air clings to skin and cloth alike, and there are men on the ground floor of the mansion, danger vibrates in the air when they break Mother’s precious porcelain and tear Father’s books. They search for Philip, she knows. Peggy shivers, her fingers finding Angelica’s hand and holding on. But then a child’s cry nearly stops her heart, a child, left forgotten below their hiding place. Catharine. Her niece.

Before anyone has the chance to think – before Peggy has the chance to think – her feet carry her downstairs, careful to be quiet, but in haste to get to the child. But she’s not lucky and there’s a man with dark eyes looking at her, a man who’s holding a naked blade and her heart beats so loud, Peggy’s sure he can hear it.

“Where is Philip Schuyler?” he demands and something breaks in her, she starts to shake. Not in fear, no. Peggy shakes in anger because this man is here, in her family’s home, with blood dripping from the blade in his hand and he’s demanding to know where her brother is.

In this moment Peggy is not beautiful, nor book-smart. She’s brave.

“He’s gone,” she says. “He’s gone to alarm the town.”

She can see that he’s surprised by this, he yells something in another language to the rest of the men ransacking the place. Peggy wastes no time. She grabs the wailing baby and runs upstairs. She doesn’t even register the thump of a tomahawk thrown her way (she’ll look at it later and tremble). Eliza catches her in a desperate, panicked embrace after Peggy hands over the crying child to its mother. Safe in her older sister’s arms, Peggy allows herself to choke on the bitter bile of fear stuck in her throat.

“You were so brave,” whispers Eliza, stroking her hair.

Brave. Yes, that’s not the worst thing one can be.

*

The war, like all wars do, eventually passes. Peggy exchanges correspondence with her favorite brother in law – Alexander Hamilton has always been the only one to notice her. She can’t always follow his way of thinking but that’s fine. She’s pretty much she bores him to tears with her dispatches about daily life, and neighborhood gossip, and shawls she had knitted but he’s just too damn nice to say anything about it.  
He writes about Eliza and the kids, about politics and the people he’s met. He writes about Washington with so much love and adoration, Peggy doesn’t know what to make of it. He never writes about Angelica. Peggy thinks she knows why. She doesn’t really have an opinion on Alexander’s relationship with her other sister, it’s private, between the two – or maybe the three of them. She never comments. He’s grateful for it.

Eventually her parents find her a husband. He’s some kind of a distant cousin to their family and he doesn’t need her money, true,  and he’s too young for her but she’s shaming her family by not being married so it doesn’t really matter.

“It’s a good match, be grateful,” her mother says. “Stephen is a nice boy. He has kind eyes and a patient smile. You’ll be happy with him.”

Peggy marries him when he’s barely more than a student and tries not to think that she’s six years older than her husband. She tries not to look at his face, unblemished by worry and age, and hate the first wrinkles on the outer edges of her own eyes.

So Peggy leaves the family mansion and moves away, she becomes the lady of the house and the humble wife to a good man who doesn’t really notice her. Peggy doesn’t mind. She already had her moment of greatness and she accepts it with the same grace and good will she’s been accepting everything else her whole life. She crochets and entertains a small circle of pious women for tea once a week. Stephen is away a lot, politics and career more important than his little, boring wife. Peggy accepts that too. After some time she’s with child and then she suddenly has someone who will love her and won’t care that she’s not as pretty or as smart as her sisters.

Peggy’s life isn’t filled with intellectual stimuli or great drama. She makes sure her children – Catherine and Stephen – are safe and loved and happy.

But death doesn’t discriminate and Peggy learns that the hard way when she weeps over the dead body of her son, only one year old, his tiny corpse already cold when she found him still and breathless in his crib. Angelica comes to stay with her, Alexander fills his letters with warmth and support, Stephen holds his wife’s hand when their child is being buried in the family plot. All of this doesn’t matter. Some wounds just won’t heal.

Life goes on and Peggy gives birth to another boy – Stephen, they call him, because there always has to be a Stephen Van Rensselaer. Peggy kisses her son’s forehead and prays that the name will bring him more luck than it did his older brother.

When Catherine, only thirteen years old and almost ready to bloom, dies suddenly after a cold becomes pneumonia, her mother’s heart shatters, never to be whole again. Peggy’s last living child, Stephen, is eight and doesn’t understand why his older sister won’t play with him and the puppy he got from Papa for Christmas. Peggy doesn’t have the words to explain.

Peggy doesn’t have the words.

*

Her letters to Alexander and her sisters grow more rare and short – her husband avoids staying at home, often taking their son with him. So Peggy spends days in her rooms alone, reading poetry and staring into space, feeling the days become darker and colder with every day. She’s not an old woman but forty years on God’s good earth is a respectable age. So Peggy feels almost relieved when an innocent cough slowly worsens, to eventually bring blood onto the white handkerchiefs she embroidered with flowers and birds.

“You came,” she says with a soft smile when Alexander crosses the threshold of her bedroom and bends to kiss her hands.

“You asked,” he replies and she can see the pain in his eyes. She’s pale, face absolutely bloodless, eyes shining with fever that doesn’t leave her anymore. Decade before he told her about how his mother had passed and Peggy feels a pang of guilt for bringing him here as it digs up memories – but he was in Albany anyway, she knows, and she just wanted to see him one last time. The one who always saw her for who she was and made her feel a bit less of a shadow.

She’ll ask him to stay for a couple of days – the end is almost here, Peggy knows. As selfish as it seems, she just wants a familiar face in the room when it happens.

And when it does, Peggy leaves this world the same way she lived in it – with acceptance and a small, soft smile on her face.


End file.
